Help - 301 Needle Striking Bobbin Case Housing
 

I've had my 301A for about 2 weeks now and it has quickly risen to my number 1 machine. Last night I was happily sewing along when the needle hit a pin and broke off. I removed the old needle but discovered that the needle is now hitting the bobbin case housing (if that's what it is called) when it goes down. It seems to be out of alignment by only a mere fraction of an inch - see photos below. If I push the needle slightly to the right it goes down fine, but only if I am pushing on it. Is this something I can fix with basic household tools or does this require a trip to the Sewing Machine Hospital? If I can fix it, how do I do this?

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You'll need to retime it which is super easy on these. There are two small screws holding on the bobbin assembly. Loosen the screws and you can rotate the bobbin assembly. I bet they are already a smidge loose if the assembly moved out of alignment. One of the screws is partially shown in your photo, the other is directly on the bottom of it. You can either take off the feed dogs to get to them or remove the bottom pan and get at them that way.

How's the retiming going?

Even though this information wasn't needed for this job I'm glad to have it to save in my "Bookmarks" in case I ever run across the need to time my 301!

I was at a friend's house, last week, and she asked me if I knew what could be wrong with her sewing machine. She was getting big, big loops on the underneath of her sewing. Come to find out, she had recently changed the needle and put a new one in the wrong way around!!

I'm also bookmarking this thread cause this sounds like something I'm going to need, too, being a blonde. HEHE But I haven't sewn on my 301 much and my FW is doing the same thing and I can't get the bobbin case reset properly.

Thanks so much for posting the great pics, Candace!